Google WiFi data snarfing broke UK law, but no penalty forthcoming

Britain's Information Commissioner won't fine Google for its WiFi data collection snafu, despite the incident being a "significant breach" of UK law. Commissioner Christopher Graham had the power to fine Google up to £500,000, but said Wednesday that he would rather be content with a written promise from Google that such a thing wouldn't happen again.

Google admitted in May that its Street View cars had been inadvertently collecting bits of data from publicly available WiFi networks as they drove down the street. Unsurprisingly, officials around the world reacted poorly to the news, with several governments demanding to see the data to ensure that no sensitive information was collected. The lawsuits began piling up too, with Google asking to roll eight of them together in the US into one giant lawsuit to make things simpler.

"We did not want this data, have never used any of it on our products and services, and have sought to delete it as quickly as possible," Google said in a statement issued to the Associated Press Wednesday. The company added that it was "profoundly sorry," and that it was working to improve things internally to ensure that similar screw-ups don't happen again.